Do you find yourself asking why your team won’t make decisions without checking in with you?
Would you like them to be more accountable so you can trust that key work will get done when it should be?
Are you telling them that they are empowered to act but they don’t seem to be taking this on board?
There may be a number of reasons for this, including their own confidence and capability …and it also may be that there is more YOU could do.
Sometimes, lack of psychological safety can result in low team empowerment. Psychological safety is present when we feel able to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes without fear of recrimination. Research shows that psychological safety allows for moderate risk-taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and sticking your neck out. When we feel safe we become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent.
And when we don’t feel safe the opposite is more likely to be true so no wonder team members don’t act on being told they are empowered – they don’t want to take risks or speak up for fear of being shut down, dismissed, or getting reproached for making a mistake.
Four tips for People Managers:
As a people manager, what can you do to make sure that lack of psychological safety is not blocking your team members from stepping up?
(1) Demonstrate candour
As a manager it is important to be willing to role model how you expect the team to honestly challenge each other in a way that is task-focused, not person-focused. In addition, psychologically safe teams know that they can trust their leaders to communicate the truth being as transparent as they can be.
(2) Lead with Empathy / Speak Human to Human
Micro-moments, the everyday actions and attitudes that come and go within seconds as we interact with others day to day, will have a lasting impact on how your team’s psychological safety increases or decreases over time. Leaders must hold a balance between being professional and being human. This requires us to lead with empathy. Leading with empathy means relating to what someone else may be going through, connecting with our values, and then acting, but not just acting from the head.
(3) Acknowledge failure
It is important to foster a culture that learns from failure often, rather than one that focuses on all of the ideas that did not work. Only one in a hundred ideas may lead to success. Psychological safety in a team means that each idea and member contribution is valued, even if not taken onboard or successful, in which case we learn from this.
(4) Demonstrate vulnerability in relation to challenges or apparent failure
Studies have shown that when leaders show vulnerability by openly discussing challenges (and even sharing embarrassing stories), team members are more likely to be engaged, come up with new ideas, and feel more positive about their own contributions to the team. Team members can be encouraged that their team is more likely to be supportive and judgement-free and so a safe space to share their own vulnerabilities when they see their leader being vulnerable and relatable
What tips would you add?
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